Floating Car Data Collection Being Tested by Acunia  / Tele Atlas Partnership
IVsource.net
20 July 2001

Floating car (aka "mobile probe") data exchange techniques are seen as key enablers towards cooperative intelligent vehicle-highway systems.  The telematics “bandwagon” is playing a strong role in driving development of not only valid technical approaches, but viable business models as well.

Floating car data exchange techniques, in which vehicles collect data on road and safety conditions and communicate this information through wireless means to other vehicles, are seen as key enablers towards cooperative intelligent vehicle-highway systems.  The telematics “bandwagon” is playing a strong role in driving development of not only valid technical approaches, but viable business models as well.

ACUNIA, a provider of next-generation telematics technology, and Tele Atlas, a digital mapping provider, have announced a partnership agreement to demonstrate the use of geodata in the development of location-based telematics services, including Floating Car Data services.  The "floating car" concept appears to be a reworking of the age-old "mobile probe" concept, where a vehicle functions not only as a consumer of data, but as a "sensor" on the transportation network as well.

Toward this end, ACUNIA has developed the Open Telematics Framework, an "end-to-end, Java-based open software design for the telematics pipeline."  The single-platform, protocol-neutral, lightweight architecture system is designed to be quickly and easily upgraded on-the-fly to add services and accommodate new technologies.

Using ACUNIA's Open Telematics Framework technology, both companies will set up a demonstration project in which geo data from Tele Atlas will be shown in a next-generation mobile environment, using a MAGIC-compliant, "distributed geo Java" model.

In the project, ACUNIA will develop and demonstrate basic navigation and Floating Car Data services.  Geo data will be downloaded to the vehicle, while at the same time vehicle data will be uploaded and used to dynamically modify Tele Atlas data on the application side.

ACUNIA will set up the demonstration at its headquarters in Belgium, with an architecture that includes application servers, a communication and control center, and the test vehicles themselves.

"This new partnership with a world leader like Tele Atlas clearly adds to the further development of ACUNIA's leadership position as a supplier of next- generation telematics technology.  Using the results of this demonstration project, Tele Atlas will have an immediate advantage in becoming the preferred supplier of geo data to car makers and telematics operators," said Marc Maes, co-founder and co-CEO of ACUNIA.

Alain De Taeye, founder and CEO of Tele Atlas, adds, "The partnership is an excellent win-win arrangement.  It introduces Tele Atlas to automotive telematics developers as the preferred source of geo data, and provides ACUNIA with access to our database, which has the largest, most detailed and most up-to-date digital map in the world."

Sounds like a project to watch ... not only for the telematics community but for intelligent vehicle proponents as well.  If the distributed communications model appears to be successful, designers of IV systems can look towards using "eyes" on the road that are not necessarily confined to the physical sphere of any singular vehicle.  Truly cooperative multivehicle-highway systems couldn't be far behind.

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For More Information ...

... access www.acunia.com.

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